Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1887-04-28
writing for the Papers.

A writer in the Chicago Inter- Ocean
says: eThere is one thing that has
puzzled me a great deal, said a knight
Of the quill. II can't understand why
so many people regard the newspaper
business as unlike every other when
thew come to dispose OF contributions
OF any kind. If a man selling apples
or potatoes comes to your door n
YOU tell him that you cont want any
he accepts the situation witnou any
show oil resentment, and endeavors
to dispose of his wares elsewhere; pus
there are hundreds and thousands OF
Young people writing poems, stories
and sketches. who seem to peiieVe
hat when they offer any contriou.
ton to a paper it must as a matteroi
courtesy and business be accepted. IL
IL Is rejected they regard the rejection
as in some way q reflection on their
ability and an insult to them person
aUv. Therefore there is more friction
In dealing with newspaper than WITH
anv other business establishment,
and the fault Is not with the newspa-
per.
writes something out OF the usual Or
der; it is complimented by his neigh
bors and the postmaster, or the
teacher. or the teacher tells him that II
ought to be published. II the article
IL returned with a considerable letter oil
explanation, in nine cases u OF lo
the boy feels worse than ii b editor
had knocked him down, and ne never
forgives him.
"Or it might happen that SOME
bright girl, having her mind Hooded
| with romance and her nature stimu
lated by the praise OF her associates,
dashes off what she conceives to be as
good a story as any that Dickens ever
wrote and sends it to the editor with
| the explanation that it is her first ell
fort. and that il has been pronounced
very fine by the very best judges, and
that she needs the money very badly
he will confer a favor by sending her
what he considers the story worth by
the next mail"
saThat isn't the sort OF q case that
troubles me-" said a grizzled veteran
of the press. "There are not many
men who rank with me az a filler OF
waste baskets, but there comes to me
| occasionally q letter written with q
trembling, shaky hand, directing at
tention, in Language pathetic and in
| coherent. to the fact that the writer
is propped up in bed, and Is writing
with the hope that what she writes
NAV bring q little money to the sup
port of her sorely-striken household;
| and that, while the sketch, or what
ever it may be, is not as we'll written
as it would be were the writer well,
she hopes that the circumstances
under which she writes will influence
| the editor in her behalf.
Orthere may GOMEZ in the sprawling,
irregular, ~s5raggling hand OF an old
mar a letter dwelling on the fact that
the writer has been an invalid from
the date OF the Mexican war, and that
he is in possession of a lund of anec-
dote and information which he de-
| sires to use to relieve his children or
grandchildren from the burden OF his
support. There may rnrf through the
letter an intimation, a. painfu! as 1T
is pitiful, that country ard friends and
family have all been a little migrate
full, and that in his extremity the old
veteran turns to the paper that has
been friendly to all soldiers, and hopes
that the editor may in his kindness OF
heart pay him well for such contribu-
tions as he will send. Thereupon he
lays outaprogramne in his old mans
fancy that is to bring him m a hand
some income and that will render him
independent ofungratetul children and
no longer a burden upon anybody.
Before q letter like that-frank, cam.
est and pitiful--the best OF us may
hesitate"